Alumni Day 2026

Eric Appel, PhD

Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Lee Otterson Faculty Scholar

Nature-Inspired Strategies for Improving Drug Delivery

Many of today’s most precise medicines are protein-based, which leaves them particularly fragile. Proteins tend to clump together, making these drugs unstable and difficult to store, ship, and deliver. This challenge has limited the development of these promising therapies due to a shortage of stabilizing ingredients and formulation strategies. In this keynote, you’ll hear how Dr. Appel’s lab at Stanford Engineering has made advancements in developing novel stabilizers and formulation approaches that maintain the stability and effectiveness of these protein drugs, addressing crucial challenges to enhance their safety, efficacy, and accessibility for patients worldwide.

Steven Corsello, MD

Assistant Professor of Medicine–Oncology
Josephine Q. Berry Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research

Old Drugs, New Uses: Surprising Opportunities for Cancer Therapy

To outsmart cancer, we need to identify new vulnerabilities in its form. Learn how Dr. Corsello and his team are systematically testing existing drugs against cancer models, finding new ways to kill cancer cells through entirely unexpected mechanisms. Dr. Corsello will discuss how drug repurposing reveals novel targets and therapeutic strategies, charting a path forward for a new class of cancer therapeutics born from reimagining existing drugs with next-generation biology.

Renee Zhao, PhD

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Treating Stroke with Mini Robots

When an ischemic stroke occurs, every minute matters—but current clot-removal technologies succeed only about half of the time. Discover how Dr. Zhao’s lab has developed the milli-spinner thrombectomy, a revolutionary mini robot that uses compression and shear force to mechanically shrink blood clots without rupturing them. This breakthrough technology achieves a 90% success rate on the most challenging clots, representing a potential paradigm shift in the treatment of strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, and other clot-related diseases.

James Zou, PhD

Associate Professor of Biomedical Data Science

AI Agents to Accelerate Biomedicine

Discovering new drugs quickly is critical—yet traditional computational approaches only scratch the surface of finding possible treatments. Dr. Zou and his colleagues have developed a generative AI model that serves as a co-scientist in a virtual research setting, exploring biomedical approaches that have never been examined by humans before. Hear how Dr. Zou utilizes AI agents and human collaboration to design and test thousands of potential therapeutics, complete with step-by-step recipes for synthesizing these novel compounds in the lab.

N. Ewen Wang, MD ’93, Resident ’96, Fellow ’99

Professor Emerita of Emergency Medicine–Pediatrics

RISE Award Honoree

The RISE (Reach, Inspire, Serve, Engage) Award will be presented to N. Ewen Wang, MD ’93, Resident ’96, Fellow ’99, Professor Emerita of Emergency Medicine–Pediatrics, in recognition of her exceptional dedication to the Stanford School of Medicine and its alumni through acts of leadership, mentoring, and teaching.

For nearly 20 years, Dr. Wang served as the associate director of Stanford Pediatric Emergency Medicine. She founded the Social Emergency Medicine section at Stanford to identify patients’ social determinants of health that contribute to disease and to develop solutions to reduce health disparities. Dr. Wang was the inaugural director of the Social Emergency Medicine Advanced Fellowship program and served as medical director of the Stanford Health Advocacy and Research in the Emergency Department program. She presently serves as the faculty director of the Stanford Medicine MD/Masters Program in Health Equity.

Dr. Wang earned her medical degree and completed an emergency medicine residency at Stanford. She completed a joint pediatric emergency medicine fellowship at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland (formerly Children’s Hospital Oakland).

Carolyn Rodriguez, MD, PhD

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Stanford School of Medicine
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Director, OCD Research Lab

Taming the Unquiet Mind: Next Frontiers in OCD Treatment and Research

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is common, disabling, and severely underdiagnosed. Standard first-line treatments for OCD may not provide sufficient relief of OCD symptoms for all those seeking care; thus, there is an urgent need for alternative treatments. Learn how Dr. Rodriguez’s lab is transforming the landscape of diagnosis and treatment through two groundbreaking approaches—first, by leveraging artificial intelligence to enable earlier, more accurate detection of OCD; and second, by pioneering the use of rapid-acting therapeutics that target specific brain circuits, offering symptom relief within hours rather than weeks.

Sean Spencer, MD, PhD, Fellow ’20, Postdoc ’22

Assistant Professor of Medicine–Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Harnessing Gut Microbes to Heal Patients

Discover the healing potential of the trillions of microbes that make up our gut microbiome. These microorganisms hold the key to pioneering innovative medicines designed to prevent and treat chronic conditions, including irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity. Dr. Spencer and a team of collaborators are building the tools, facilities, and clinical trials necessary to safely develop, test, and deliver new microbiome-based treatments to those who need them most.

Jean Tang, MD ’99, PhD ’03, Resident ’07

Professor of Dermatology

Personalized Gene Therapy to Treat Rare Disease

For patients with epidermolysis bullosa, a rare genetic condition that causes skin as fragile as butterfly wings, even the slightest touch can lead to painful blistering and wounds that never heal. Dr. Tang will share her team’s 20-year groundbreaking journey from laboratory to FDA approval of personalized skin grafts to treat patients’ large, open wounds. Genetically engineered from a patient’s own cells, these grafts bring immense relief to patients, primarily young children. Learn how early intervention with gene therapies may transform the disease trajectory for future patients.

Lloyd B. Minor, MD

Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the School of Medicine
Vice President for Medical Affairs at Stanford University

Dean's Remarks

Dean Minor is a scientist, surgeon, and academic leader. He has served as dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine since December 2012. In addition, he is a professor of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery and, by courtesy, of neurobiology and bioengineering at Stanford University. As dean, Dr. Minor plays an integral role in setting strategy for the clinical enterprise of Stanford Medicine. He also oversees the quality of Stanford Medicine’s physician practices and growing clinical networks. With Dr. Minor’s leadership, Stanford Medicine has established a strategic vision to lead the biomedical revolution in precision health.